Man jailed for sex attack on schoolgirls

'She repeatedly told him she was only 13, but he said it didn’t matter'

John Garvey

john.garvey@newburynews.co.uk

Contact:

01635 886628

A man from the local horseracing community has been jailed for trying to rape one child before sexually abusing another.

The female victims, both aged 13, had been drinking so much they blacked out, Reading Crown Court heard on Friday, September 8.

They awoke to find Frank Fairchild trying to have sex with one of them before indecently assaulting the other.

Alistair Fell, prosecuting, said one child collapsed onto a sofa and remembered finding Fairchild on top of her.

She later told police: “He was having sex with me. I think I said ‘ouch’… and he stopped.”

Mr Fell said the other girl had passed out nearby, fully clothed, but woke to find she was lying naked and being indecently assaulted by Fairchild, formerly of Humphreys Lane, East Garston, and latterly of Kennet Road, Kintbury.

He added: “She repeatedly told him she was only 13, but he said it didn’t matter.

“She slapped him, but then she passed out again. She was trying to get him to stop but she was so out of it she couldn’t push him off.”

The girls told an older friend what happened and the police were alerted.

Fairchild, 28, who used to attend the British Racing School in Newmarket, Suffolk, had meanwhile handed himself in to police”

Subsequent medical examinations suggested that one victim had endured an abortive attempt at intercourse, while the other had internal bruising consistent with a sexual assault.

Mr Fell concluded: “Both girls were sexually naive and had the further trauma of having to undergo unpleasant examinations and pregnancy tests.”

Fairchild admitted one charge of attempted rape and another of committing sexual assault on a child by penetration.

Beverley Cripps, mitigating, said that, in regards to one victim, her client had “desisted when asked to do so.”

She added: “What happened is undoubtedly out of character. There is absolutely nothing in his antecedent history that reflects these offences.”

Ms Cripps handed in character references on behalf of Fairchild and said his guilty pleas had spared his victims the further ordeal of having to give live evidence in court.

She explained that her client had also been very drunk and suggested the offences would not have happened otherwise.

Judge Maria Lamb told Fairchild: “I accept there’s no question of you getting them drunk to carry out the offences which ensued. I can see very clearly that you yourself were extremely drunk. That, I’m afraid, isn’t a mitigating factor.

“It’s no consolation to those young girls... for whom that night was their first sexual experience.”

Judge Lamb sentenced Fairchild to a total of six-and-a-half years in prison.

He will serve just half of that behind bars and the rest in the community, on licence. Fairchild will also remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life.